Yes, what do we do about Google and Facebook? I have mentioned that they were responsible for 82.4% of the ad impressions in the quarter that was measured, and in the United States, in the quarter that we talk about in the report, there was a $2.7 billion growth in revenue year over year in that quarter, of which $1.4 billion went to Google, $1 billion went to Facebook, and $300 million went to everybody else.
There was a great reluctance toward a lot of policy types of solutions, but we heard a receptivity from the public to tax Google and Facebook. That didn't seem a principled approach to us. They are two very successful innovative companies that have hit the sweet spot with Canadians and people all over the world.
Nonetheless, I think that when you've got that kind of consolidation of the Internet, consolidation over both audience and revenue, it's an issue that should be considered by policy-makers, and I don't think it's a national issue. You're talking about a global company, and I think that's beyond the ken of one country itself to address, but I think it's worth considering.
I wouldn't want to penalize success, though. I don't believe in that, but I would like to have a system. The cable companies are a good example. The cable companies were seen to be common carriers that were profiting from content created elsewhere, so a levy was placed upon them. I'm not placing a levy on Facebook or Google, but I recognize that a lot of that levy could very well fall on them. We've taken a principled approach to that.
I think the other question about Google and Facebook is whether they should take the responsibility of the publishers for the non-truth neutrality issues. When I was the editor-in-chief of The Globe and Mail, I was responsible for everything that appeared in The Globe and Mail, including letters to the editor. If a letter to the editor was defamatory, that was my responsibility as the editor-in-chief, and not the writer of the letter to the editor; and I believe it's a principle that if you publish something, you should be responsible for the quality of what you publish. That seems to me a fairly obvious fact that isn't obvious to everybody.